Rough Cut (15 page)

   Carter shook his head. “I’m afraid not. Information about this case is strictly on a need to know basis.”

   “I understand.” Antoine’s disappointment was clearly written on his face. “Shall we go?”

_________________________

   Carter and Conrad sat in the back of the Citroen while Antoine sat in the front with the driver. When they reached Port Grimaud, the driver stopped at the entrance to deposit his passengers.

   “Wait for me at the Café Poisson,” instructed Antoine as he got out of the car. The driver nodded and swung the car round the small roundabout and into the town car park.

   Antoine led Carter and Conrad to the Capitainerie where Jacques was on the quayside, casually coiling excess rope from one of the Esprit’s mooring warps as he waited for his clients to arrive. When they did, he greeted them warmly.

   After the introductions were complete, Antoine took his leave. “I will await your return with the driver. We will be at the Café Poisson in the Place du Marché.”

   “That’s great. Thank you.” Carter took an envelope from his blazer pocket and passed it to Antoine. Without looking inside, Antoine folded the envelope and put it into the pocket of his trousers before leaving them.

   “Where do you wish to go?” asked Jacques when Antoine had gone, “Monsieur du Bois did not say when he made the booking.”

   Carter had expected the question and was ready for it. He knew it would be necessary to have some pretext upon which to base the charter if suspicions were not to be aroused unduly.

   “The Ile du Levant,” he said, “We’d like to see the old fort.”

   “Yes, I know it,” said Jacques, “It will take about an hour and a half to get there.”

   On board the Esprit, Jacques introduced his clients to Eloise. Carter knew from what Nicole had told him that Eloise might be there but he had still hoped that she wouldn’t be.

   As Jacques prepared the Esprit for departure, Eloise crewed for him, as she had promised. She was surprisingly adept at it and clearly enjoyed the role.

   When the Esprit was under way, Eloise went up to the fly bridge to be with Jacques, leaving his two clients to themselves on the aft deck. Carter watched her legs disappear up the steps and waited a few moments to see if she returned. When she did not, he motioned to Conrad to follow him into the saloon where they began their search. They soon found the bookshelf and noticed the copy of
Robin Hood
amongst the other books, most of which were in French. Carter grabbed it eagerly and began to leaf through the pages.

   “Do you think that’s the one?” Conrad asked.

   “It must be! Look,” Carter pointed to the shelf where the other books were, “it’s the odd one out. All the others are either modern novels or reference books, and they’re all in French. It’s got to be the one.“

   Up on the fly bridge, Eloise was standing beside Jacques as the Esprit sped across the bay. “I’d better go and see if our guests are all right,” she said, “They seemed a bit strange to me.”

   “Strange?”

   “Yeah, you know, a bit odd.”

   Jacques shrugged. He had clients who were paying good money to use his boat; he didn’t really care if they were a bit odd.

   When she entered the saloon, Eloise saw Carter and Conrad hunched together near the bookshelf, intent on examining the book they had found. She looked at them suspiciously.

   “Can I help you?” she asked.

   They froze. Carter closed his eyes and swore under his breath. Slowly he turned and looked at Eloise.

   “We were just saying that this is kind of a strange book to find on a boat in the south of France. Don’t you think?”

   Eloise saw that the book Carter was holding was the copy of
Robin Hood
, the one in which she had found the sheet of paper, and she sensed that there was more to it than that, especially as the two men were not behaving like tourists; tourists would have been out on the deck or up on the fly bridge enjoying the view, not in the saloon.

   “Maybe,” she said, walking over to them. She took the book from Carter and put it back on the shelf with the others, “but I don’t really think you’re interested in literature, are you?” She stepped back from them and folded her arms defiantly. “Are you going to tell me about it? Or shall I tell Jacques to turn the boat round and go back to Port Grimaud?”

   “Tell you about what?” asked Carter.

   Conrad tried to get round behind Eloise but she moved quickly to the door, blocking him and turned to face them.

   “About why you’re here. About why you hired this boat. And about why you’re so interested in that book.”

   “I don’t know what you mean,” Carter protested.

   “Oh I think you do.”

   For a few moments Eloise held Carter in a fixed stare. Then, still keeping her eyes on him, she leaned back and shouted out through the door, “Jacques! Can you come down here, please.”

   Jacques only just heard her over the noise of the wind and the engines but he could hear enough to pick up the sense of urgency in her voice. He cut the engines, leaving the Esprit to drift with the current, and was soon standing beside her.

   “What’s going on?” he asked.

   “I don’t think these people are who they say they are,” said Eloise as she stood defiantly in the doorway with Jacques looking over her shoulder into the saloon.

   Carter tried again to calm her fears. “Look, we’re just a couple of guys looking for a day out from a boring conference, OK?”

   “Oh, is that right?” snapped Eloise. “Well guess what? I don’t believe you. And we’re not going anywhere till we find out the truth. Right, Jacques?” She looked at Jacques for support and he nodded his agreement emphatically.

   “OK you guys! Playtime’s over!” Conrad moved forward menacingly as he spoke and Eloise saw him draw an automatic pistol from where it had been tucked into the back of his trousers. Jacques saw it too and moved round in front of Eloise to protect her. As Conrad passed in front of Carter, Carter reached out, took hold of the barrel of the gun and twisted it out of Conrad’s grasp.

   “Where the hell did you get that?” he asked as he stared at Conrad.

   “Well, you remember when I went to the bathroom at the airport…?”

   “You’re kidding me?”

   Conrad shook his head slowly. “Someone’s got to watch your back.”

   “Well, I don’t think there’s any need for that here,” he said as he put the gun down on the table. “We’re not back in the US of A now, you know. This is France, and they don’t take too kindly to people carrying concealed weapons here.”

   “In that case, maybe you should tell them,” said Conrad.

   “Sounds like good advice to me,” said Eloise, trying very hard not to sound scared.

   “Let’s all just cool down for a second, shall we?” said Carter, “Why don’t we all just sit down and keep calm, huh? No one’s going to hurt anyone. Right, Conrad?”

   Conrad nodded and sat down at the table. Carter looked at Eloise and Jacques standing in the doorway. “You too,” he said.

   “No way! I’m not moving till you tell us who you are,” retorted Eloise, loudly but a little unsurely.

   Carter sighed. Slowly, he took his wallet from his pocket and showed Eloise his FIDT identity card. She looked at it carefully.

   “So what are you? Some sort of private investigator?” she asked

   “Something like that,” replied Carter as, reluctantly and slowly, Eloise and Jacques walked forward and sat at the table in the saloon. Carter sat down facing Jacques from the other end of the table whilst Eloise and Conrad were side by side with their backs to the boat’s starboard window. Eloise shuffled as close to Jacques as she could and as far away from Conrad as possible.

   “You know, there’s no reason for you to be afraid of us,” said Carter. “We’re the good guys. It’s the ones we’re trying to track down that you need to watch out for.”

   “So who are they? And what’s it got to do with us anyway? And what the hell is the FIDT?” questioned Eloise.

   There was something about Carter which made Eloise believe him, even trust him; his voice was quiet and reassuring and his manner relaxed, almost tired.

   “Well, it’s a long story,” began Carter, “but I guess you’re entitled to hear it. Maybe you should secure the boat, Jacques. This could take a while.”

   Jacques nodded and went to the helm station at the front of the saloon. The others sat in silence as they heard the anchor chain rattle over the bow of the Esprit.

   “OK,” Carter took a deep breath as Jacques returned to his seat, “Conrad and me, we’re working for an organisation called The New York Federation of International Diamond Traders, the FIDT, like on my identity card.” Jacques stared at Carter as he continued. “The Federation works with other national and international organisations which, together, are responsible for the distribution of most of the diamonds produced in the world. It’s our job to track down people who try to cheat the system, usually by feeding fake diamonds into the market and passing them off as the real thing.”

   “But surely there are ways of detecting fakes aren’t there?” Eloise’s fear had subsided, to be replaced with interest and curiosity, but Jacques kept throwing a glance at Conrad. Each time he did, Conrad smiled back at him and patted the gun which he had reclaimed from the table and pushed into his waistband.

   “Yes, that’s true. And it’s easy enough to detect diamond substitutes. Zirconia for instance. Our members don’t have too much trouble distinguishing between substitutes and the real thing. No, where the trouble starts is with synthetic diamonds. These are real diamonds. They have all the properties and attributes of real diamonds, except that they’ve never seen the inside of a diamond mine.”

   “I didn’t think it was possible to make diamonds artificially,” said Eloise

   “Most of the commercially produced synthetic diamonds in the world are very small, poor quality and easily distinguished from the real thing. They can only be used for industrial purposes. Drill bits, glass cutters, that kind of thing. Not for jewellery. And their value is relatively low. But for a while now, people have been trying to make bigger, better, gem quality stones and some of them have succeeded. The Russians, for instance, have been making gem quality synthetics for quite a few years and synthetic diamonds are now getting so good that it takes special, very expensive equipment to detect them, equipment that jewellers just don’t have.”

   “And you think someone’s been feeding some of these synthetic diamonds into the system illegally?” queried Eloise, “Mixing them in with natural diamonds at some point?”

   “Yeah! That’s right! ” Carter looked pleased. “Your mother was right. She said you were bright.”

   The silence was deafening.

   The only sound was the gentle lapping of the sea against the hull of the Esprit as all eyes turned to look at Carter. He closed his eyes, realising what he had done. In a moment of carelessness, he had got carried away and had said something stupid. He cursed himself and opened his eyes again to find Eloise staring at him, her face challenging him. After several seconds of silence had passed, she spoke.

   “What did you just say?” she asked, daring him to try to extract himself from the hole he had just dug for himself. Carter cleared his throat.

   “About the diamonds?”

   “About my mother. How come you know my mother?” Eloise tilted her head threateningly as she spoke.

   “Your mother? Oh yes. Didn’t I tell you? Your mother and I, we were at university together.”

   “No, you didn’t tell me. And, anyway, that was twenty-odd years ago. I wasn’t even born then. So how do you know about me. And about how bright I am? When did you last speak to my mother?”

   “I spoke to her yesterday.”

   “About this?”

   “Yes.”

   “But what have synthetic diamonds got to do with her? Or me, for that matter?”

   “Well, they appear to be coming from a mine owned by your grandfather.”

   Eloise’s mood changed from one of intellectual interest to one of apprehension. But she was angry too.

   “Are you trying to tell me that you think my grandfather is involved in this… this scam?”

   “I don’t know for sure but it’s possible, yes. Likely, even.”

   Eloise got up from the table. “I think I’ve heard enough of this rubbish,” she said and stormed out of the saloon onto the aft deck.

   Moments later, she was standing at the aft guard rail, staring out into the distance as Carter came up behind her and touched her on the shoulder. She shied away from his touch.

   “What about your brother Eloise? What about Rob?” he said, desperate to get her back on side.

   Eloise rounded on him, her eyes bright and challenging. “What about him?” she said. “I suppose you’re going to tell me that he was involved as well. Well if he was, you’re never going to know because he’s dead!” She glared at him and went to hit him with her clenched fist but he caught it in mid-air and held her with a stare. She grimaced and a lonely tear trickled down her cheek. Carter let go of her fist and her hand dropped to her side.

   “No, Eloise, I’m not going to say that. But I do believe he died because of it. I think, somehow, by chance, by accident, unknowingly, I don’t know how but somehow, he got caught up in it. He probably wasn’t even aware of his involvement.”

   “You haven’t got a shred of proof of any of this, have you?”

   Carter stood silently and looked away into the distance. The atmosphere bristled in the silence that followed before Carter suddenly turned back to face Eloise, his face animated and lively. He grabbed her by the shoulders, frightening her.

   “Maybe there
is
a way I can prove it to you,” he said. “Come back into the saloon with me and let me try.” He looked at her intensely and she backed away from him. As she did she could feel the Esprit’s guard rail behind her.

   “Come on, Eloise. Let me try. Please?” pleaded Carter as he gently guided a hesitant Eloise towards the saloon. Jacques and Conrad, who had come out onto the deck behind Carter, followed them back inside and took their seats again, waiting expectantly.